About 300 fall ill from heat at Boy Scout Jamboree.
It was in the upper 90’s, high humidity, so they marched hundreds of Boy Scouts onto an unshaded field and waited for Dubya to arrive.
Hundreds had to be treated for dehydration and heat-related illness. None of it had to happen.
I was at the US Festival, a big rock concert in ’82, twenty feet from the outdoor stage. It was over 100 degrees and we were seriously jammed in close together. During the breaks, staff came out with fire hoses and just hosed us down. Wow, great. After five minutes. Umm, we’re soaking. After ten minutes, hey please stop. No, they nodded, we will hose you down until the next act starts. We don’t want casualties.
Thus, a bunch of rock and rollers apparently understood far better than the Boy Scouts what to do with large numbers of people in big fields when it’s very hot. Oh, a few keeled over from the heat at the US Festival, but nowhere near 300. And about 100,000 people were there.
And then there were the Boy Scout “leaders” who erected a tent with metal poles near a power line and killed themselves.
The illnesses came as many were still reeling from the deaths of four Boy Scout leaders from Alaska. Some Scouts had been watching as the metal pole at the center of a large, white dining tent touched power lines. Screams rang out as the tent caught fire and the men burned.
I believe Cub Scouts 101 teaches you not to do stupid stuff like this.
I’m stupefied by these pointless, tragic deaths and by 300 scouts needing medical attention because their elders were too clueless to take action.